


a soft epilogue

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [42]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 14:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: One year later and it's their anniversary.





	a soft epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> for day one of [nyxnoctweek](https://nyxnoctocalypse.tumblr.com/). happy ship anniversary everybody!

“You really need to stop getting me things.”

“I’m the _King_. Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”

“Sound more like a dictator…”

A light slap to Nyx’s arm silenced his complaints into a fond smile. The Crown that Noctis had been so afraid to wear for so long fit him beautifully. One year after his Ascension – after returning to Nyx’s arms, hollow-eyed and bereft of hope – the King of Light radiated with his title. He was ten years older, but still as young as the day Nyx fell for him. His eyes were bright and weightless, no more fears left to cast their shadows on him. No more wars to frighten him from sleep. No more eyes to hide from.

They walked, hand in hand, through the murmuring city streets. Insomnia was still slow to rouse, but it was re-awakening, nevertheless. Over the course of the dawn’s return, they’d gradually begun to rebuild, sifting through the rubble and the ash to find their foundations again. It would be a long struggle to resuscitate the heart of the city, where the worst of the damage had been done. But it was a short call out into the Lucian lands that summoned Insomnia’s people back.

There was a unity to the city’s people now that Nyx once feared he’d never live to see. A forgiveness and a tenacity to help each other reclaim what had always been shared between them, but never acknowledged. The scorn that Nyx had always anticipated for holding the hand of the throne in his own was never seen. The returning people accepted now because they were all the same. Displaced, rootless, and homesick.

“Here we are,” Noctis announced into his thoughts, a familiar shyness to his voice.

Long, lithe fingers tangled in an uncertain squeeze through Nyx’s own. Nyx’s response was immediate, clasping his hand and tugging Noctis ever closer to his side.

The building façade was brand new. Much like Nyx might have imagined it would have looked like the hundred years before he moved in. Clean, gray stone, un-stained by centuries of rain and wear, stacked neatly against the street corner. Squat, sandy-white steps split the doors at each floor, zig-zagging like Ramuh’s thunder-bolt all along the edifice. New doors, new windows, no new people yet. The building was quiet from the outside, empty rooms waiting with breath held until the very first greeting.

“I missed it,” Noctis murmured. “I know it was a really crappy apartment, but… it was ours.”

“Yeah,” Nyx said, exhaling a long breath, holding Noctis’s hand a little tighter.

“I tried to keep it as close to the original as I remembered, but it might not be exactly the same.”

“That’s fine. It’s like us, then.”

Noctis hugged his arm and led him to the door of his old-new apartment.

It was almost like walking into a photograph. The space was arranged exactly how he remembered it – how _Noctis_ remembered it. Nyx could see his husband’s hand in the arrangements as if Noctis were setting things in their place right in front of him. There was the bed in the little alcove just beneath his elbow-shaped window. There was his old armchair in front of a new TV and a new couch that looked purposely beaten to replicate its predecessor. There was the tiny kitchenette, a closet open to show a few hand-picked articles already placed inside, a few more new utilities that he’d never been able to afford on his own before.

It was all brand new to him, but it still kept their memories. Even on his desk, just next to the TV.

“When the guys found these” – Noctis curled his ringed finger around Nyx’s matching wedding band – “I thought there might be hope I could find some of those. A lot of them I couldn’t save, but I had Prompto help fill in the spaces that I couldn’t.”

Nyx approached the board full of photos, holding hard onto Noctis’s hand in his. It wasn’t the same pictures, but the love he felt for each one was. Noctis had rescued his favorites – Crowe and Libertus and his family, all slung together in front of the river; Selena and his mother, their smiles a little singed, but enduring through everything.

And he’d added his most recent favorites. Shots he’d only seen on Prompto’s camera screen. Pictures of the five of them, getting lost in Lucis. The lighthouse, the Kenny’s mascot, the chocobos, the cat. There was one of his and Gladio’s arm-wrestling stalemate. One candid of him and Ignis, toasting a decent morning. A selfie with Prompto, just before a stampede of chickatrices over-took the shot.

And there were those of him and Noctis. Moments where neither of them had been looking. Where they’d been too caught up in the sight of one another to notice the muted click of Prompto’s shutter going off. One with his arm around the prince’s shoulders as they browsed the Lestallum marketplace. One with his arm pressed to his along the pier at Galdin Quay.

And there were a few secret photos. Ones that must have been from Noctis’s phone. One of the rare moments Nyx dozed in the back-seat of the Regalia on his shoulder. One of his bemused expression as he stared at the camera, unknowing of the frothy mustache over his lips from a café coffee.

And there was one that he remembered fondly. One before everything had changed. One from the best year of their lives, secreting away into this very apartment, trading kisses and promises underneath the sheets of that very bed.

A sleepy, smiling photo, Nyx with his face half-turned into Noct’s hair. Noct with his hand curled up in Nyx’s braids. Both with hooded eyes in the rising light of the morning. Both bare and content and so much more in love with each other than any photograph could ever express.

Nyx remembered the kiss after the camera blinked. Like he remembered every kiss. Like he would remember this one, pressed lightly to his knuckles, just below the silver promise on his finger.

“If we ever wanted to get away again,” Noctis explained. “If the Citadel ever felt too… big. If we ever wanted to be alone like we used to.”

“Or for special occasions?” Nyx countered, nudging a kiss of his own along the crown of his eye. “Like our anniversary?”

Noctis giggled, no different than it had always been beneath Nyx’s teasing. Home may have changed, their bodies may have changed, the whole world might have changed, but this never did. This high of warmth and gentleness in his heart every time he watched Noctis smile. This pride that made his blood hum for being the reason behind that smile.

This love that he had never been looking for, but found him in the soft twilight of every evening. In the pale dawn of every morning. In the bright, blue sky that freed him from behind these lonely walls.

The apartment may have been broken, but Nyx had never been homeless. Not since he’d clawed his way past the burning walls. Not since he’d collapsed on the floor of the Leville and tasted tears in his kisses. Not since he’d wrapped him up in the midnight of Duscae and bound him to his heart forever.

“Is it alright?” Noctis asked him, casting his eyes around the apartment, ascertaining his own answer from his survey.

“Perfect. Though we have a lot of christening to do until it’s fully ours again.”

“It’s our anniversary,” Noctis said, just because he could; just because it was true. “And we have all day.”

Nyx dragged his hands through long, ebony locks. Pet along the hidden places that Noctis kept just for him. Noctis slid his touch along his neck. Along the stripe of ink where his pulse raced whenever Noctis kissed him there.

Always familiar, but never old. Nyx would never tire of how much he loved him. And how much Noctis loved him back in the warm, clear glow of his eyes.

“Happy anniversary, little king.”


End file.
